Reflections from a new Secular Franciscan

“It’s Not a SIN if You Don’t Get Caught!”

Happy Veterans Day. Let us thank every veteran and active duty military person we come across today. Because of them, we can read this, and have privileges that most others don’t get to enjoy. God bless our veterans.

43 days till CHRISTmas,

and 18 days till the beginning of the ADVENT season

“HO, HO , HO-ly God, We Praise Thy Name!”

Humor of the Day:

Confession without repentance is just bragging.

Today’s Meditation:

From the Apostles Creed, (continued):

“… THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS …”

On Easter Sunday, Jesus told the two disciples on the way to Emmaus: “You see how it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that in His name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations, starting from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:46-47). He was not only predicting that the gospel would be preached to all nations. He foretold that sins would be forgiven to those who repented.

The Church founded by Christ actually has the power to forgive sins in His name. We believe that Christ entrusted His Church with a share in His own divine power to remove the guilt and the penalty due to sins, just as He had done personally during His public ministry. Jesus continues His mission of healing souls through the Church that He founded.

Sins are remitted by the sacrament of baptism. And, sins after baptism are also remitted by those who have been ordained to the priesthood. This has always been the Church’s understanding of Christ’s words on Easter Sunday night when Christ told the apostles: “Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sin you retain, they are retained” (John 20:22-23).

It is this sharing in the divine power of forgiving sins that the Church believes is the greatest gift that Christ bequeathed to a sinful world until the end of time.

Information from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Pax et Bonum

Dan Halley, SFO

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Secular Franciscan Order (SFO) Rule #11:

Trusting the Father, Christ chose for Himself and His mother a poor and humble life, even though He valued created things attentively and lovingly. Let the Secular Franciscans seek a proper spirit of detachment from temporal goods by simplifying their own material needs. Let them be mindful that according to the gospel they are stewards of the goods received for the benefit of God’s children. Thus, in the spirit of the Beatitudes, and as pilgrims and strangers on their way to the home of the Father, they should strive to purify their hearts from every tendency and yearning for possession and power.